Old-school memories, loyalties run deep

Updated 3:03 am, Monday, December 17, 2012

Market Street bustles in the mid-1960s, an era that holds special memories for those who were young then.

Market Street bustles in the mid-1960s, an era that holds special memories for those who were young then.

Photo: Ken McLaughlin, The Chronicle

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Carl Nolte, general assignment reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, poses for a portrait on Tuesday July 1, 2008 in San Francisco, Calif.

Carl Nolte, general assignment reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, poses for a portrait on Tuesday July 1, 2008 in San Francisco, Calif.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chroncle

Old-school memories, loyalties run deep

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There was a rare gathering on a rare day Wednesday - a lunch featuring a whole roomful of native sons. It was a once-in-a-lifetime day as well - 12-12-12 - a triple dozen day.

This was the 49th annual Christmas gathering, a meeting of the San Francisco tribe, all men, all of a certain seasoned age, faded a bit by time, like an old Polaroid photograph you might find in a box in the basement.

"How are ya?" they'd say to each other, not always sure they remembered the other guy. "Whereja go to school?" That was the key question by which all native San Franciscans used to identify each other. School meant high school, not college or anything else. They ran words together in the old San Francisco manner, so that "where did you" came out "whereja," and they talked fast, running all the words together.

They were bound by ties of loyalty and shared experience. They were from Lowell, from Lincoln, from St. Ignatius ("S.I." in the local language), from Sacred Heart, Balboa, Washington, Mission, Galileo, a few from Riordan, and a big group from long-gone Polytechnic High School in the Haight.

Most of them graduated in the '50s and '60s, and they came back to the Italian Athletic Club in North Beach, like time travelers from a city that vanished years ago, another San Francisco where everybody knew everybody else. "And if you were an athlete, everybody in the city knew you," said Ray Monteroso, from Poly High.

I ran into Bob Pult, who was a year ahead of me in high school. I ran into Mike Saunders, who went to Sacred Heart with my brother Frank. "How is he?" Saunders asked. "He's a great guy."

Well, we were all great guys at the lunch, and we all grew up in a city that was clean, safe, friendly and a lot smaller. Almost all of the old San Franciscans have moved out of town. "It's not the same city," they say. You hear that a lot.

Indeed not. The San Francisco of our youth was much less diverse: you could tell that in a flash from looking at the lunch crowd. They were almost all white, and they looked alike, as if they were members of the same family.

Pride in alma mater

In a way, they are. The pull of San Francisco is strong, even for expatriate San Franciscans. They have gathered every Christmas season at various restaurants for drinks and lunch, an event organized this year and in years past by Denis Ragan, who went to S.I. and the University of San Francisco, and seemed to know every single one of the 182 men in the room and what high school they attended.

There is still pride in the old school. They keep an eye out. There was a lot of talk at lunch about how Lincoln beat Mission in the Turkey Day Game at Kezar Stadium last month.

There was talk about adventures. "You know what was scary? said Richard Friedman, who went to Lincoln and later was in combat in the Army in Korea. "It was hanging onto the cowcatcher on the back of the streetcar and going through the Twin Peaks Tunnel."

That was a practice called "nipping the fender" in which kids would ride on the outside of the car on the streetcar's rear fender, which was folded up and secured to the car by small chains. The tracks were bad in the tunnel, and the old streetcars jounced and bucked. Very dangerous. One slip and you were dead.

"I dare ya," other kids would say, "I dare ya." Too tough for guys like me. But Friedman did it.

Keeping school spirit alive

Memories like that bound the boys together. That and loyalty. Monteroso has kept the spirit of the old Polytechnic High School alive more than 40 years after the school was closed. He's organized Poly High lunches and events. At the latest one, almost 400 people showed up.

"It was a great school with a great tradition," Monteroso said. He is 75 now, played football and basketball for Poly, graduated in 1953, and never forgot where he came from.

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